We’ve all seem them: The games that fill the $5 bin at GameStop or receive an exponential number of negative reviews on Steam. What most people don’t realize is that these unknown, B-rated, and ‘scorched earth’ reviewed games are frequently a game someone falls deeply in love with or at least enjoyed way more than they thought they would.

Do you have one? What is it?

For myself a few mentions are Two Worlds/Two Worlds II, Cold Winter, and Mass Effect 1. Now, I know Mass Effect is easily one of the most recognizable and critically acclaimed game series in the gaming community, but the first title does receive a tremendous amount of flak for various reasons such inventory micromanaging, asshole Mako driving, and skills. So due to it’s negative reception compared to 2 and 3 I am including it in my list of “Unknown and Poorly Reviewed” games.

If it ever drops in price on Steam I’ll likely buy No Man’s Sky. I think for a cheap price I’ll enjoy at. And the only reason I say that is I was one of the few that knew about the game existing throughout development, but had zero information on it other than that. So while a lot of people are disappointed with the end product I might mildly enjoy it.

DId anyone enjoy Catherine as much as I did? The game-play was awesome the art style was awesome and the story was probably the best ever for a puzzle game.

It has like 79 on meta-critic but Ive seen games that are much worse with better scores. I hope they make another one.

Another one is California games for the NES. The game absolutely sucks and the controls are terrible and confusing but whenever my friend comes over with his NES we always play because we are red faced from laughing so hard by the end.

A couple that spring to my mind right away are Splatterhouse (From 2010) and Dante’s Inferno (for Xbox360). I loved the soundtrack from Splatterhouse and the fact you have Jim Cummings, who voices some pretty big Disney names (like Winnie the Pooh, Darkwing Duck, Pete, the Big Bad Wolf, King Louie, and a few others) basically going ape shit. Here’s his IMDB link. He’s done a LOT of video game work.

I also really enjoyed Dante’s Inferno. It was a fun and mildly easy button masher (and honestly it felt like a clone of God of War in more than a few ways.) If you can find it dirt cheap, or rent it from gamefly I’d say it’s worth it. The one really big downside is when you fight Satan, dude is hangin’ brain. I do NOT need to see the Devil’s wang floppin’ in the breeze. Aside from that, it was fun and a creative re-imagining on the idea of Dante’s Inferno. I just wish it had been better received so we could have gotten Purgatory and Paradise as final chapters (like in The Divine Comedy, where Dante’s Inferno comes from?)